The invention relates to a spring-damper system for use in bearings or as a damper, in particular an active spring-damper system for active bearing systems. The invention also relates to a vibration-damping bearing, in particular an active bearing.
In virtually all technical fields, vibration problems occur which have to be solved, for example by decoupling part of a structure from its vibrating surroundings. An example of this is the bearing system of drive assemblies in vehicles, which constitutes a transmission point for vibrations and solid-borne sound. In order to prevent disruptive vibrations and noises propagating, devices for vibration damping or isolation, which are of different designs, are know from the prior art, said devices using elastic and/or damping materials to generate a purely passive vibration effect. These prior art devices are not able to adapt to changing system properties in order to maintain the best possible vibration damping or isolation.
In addition to vibration-damping or isolating systems which are of purely passive design, use is being increasingly made of mechatronic and adaptronic solutions in order to implement active bearings. Although active bearings are technically more complex than passive bearing systems, they provide the possibility of a broadband reduction in vibrations and selective influencing of the transmission behaviour, for example through selective inputting of counteracting vibrations or selective changes in the damping or vibration properties of the system. Such active bearings, in particular for engine bearing systems, are known, for example, from DE 10 2005 029 234 A1 and from MTZ—Motortechnische Zeitschrift [Engine Technology Periodical], Issue January 2013, 74th Year, pp 55-59. In this context, the active bearing or the active spring-damper system is respectively arranged between the engine and the engine frame.
The disadvantage of such spring-damper systems or bearing systems is the comparatively large installation space which is necessary for the use of these systems. For this reason, when a small installation space is available, such as, for example in the case of engine bearings, the use of active bearings is often dispensed with or they are not provided at all the bearing points or not in all the spatial directions. An approach, that when the spatial conditions are limited, the actuator system for the active spring-damper system is to be made correspondingly smaller, is, however, generally associated with disadvantageous limitations regarding the available maximum force and the maximum displacement and/or robustness or durability.